She found Rhain on a bench near the wall. She stayed quiet, though if he wanted to be alone, he would have been elsewhere. The gardens here were nothing like Tickhill’s where there was a modicum of privacy.
Here it was as bustling as the rest of the city. She welcomed the din that masked her footsteps when she approached him and stopped so she could observe him without his noticing.
His hood was up, but she would notice him anywhere now. Despite that he wasn’t moving, or touching the hilt of his dagger. It was his abject stillness. How alone he looked even in the midst of bustling York.
He sat, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped before him, his head bowed. As if he was praying. He hadn’t stopped at the chapel in her village, nor the beautiful private one built by Eleanor of Aquitaine at Tickhill. Just behind him was a cathedral thousands made pilgrimages to and he was avoiding it.
He had, in fact, avoided all churches; given wide berth to the monks at Tickhill. He even dismissed her request to attend mass when she asked whether he was going.
Yet he was praying now, but his tranquility felt dangerous. Like a warning. Maybe this was what Nicholas spoke of.
‘How long did Nicholas last against your demands to tell my whereabouts?’ he said, his voice resonating.
Rhain hadn’t changed his posture, his eyes still closed, his hands clasped.
‘How did you know it was me?’
The corner of his mouth curved and he looked up. His hood should have shielded the color of his eyes and the expression of his face. But the soft afternoon light inveigled itself underneath and glowed against the stubble of his jaw, reflected in the goldenness of his eyes. They shone like the brightest of lights. Was it only the light making them glimmer like that, or his troubled thoughts?
She swallowed. ‘I may have said please.’
‘Well, that’s practically begging coming from you.’
‘I never beg.’
‘No, but you give a man no choice either.’
His words cut. She hadn’t given him a choice to say no at the village or at Tickhill. Nicholas had warned her not to come here, but she demanded that, too.
Why? To help? He was praying for that, and she had intruded. But she did have some words she needed to say.
‘I wanted to thank you for bringing me here and for paying for my room.’
He pressed his hands on his knees and straightened. ‘Did you find what you wanted here?’
She was needed in the innkeeper’s kitchens. The wife had grabbed her hands when thanking her, and she had felt a lightness she hadn’t felt in years.
She didn’t now. It was Rhain and how alone he looked. But he wasn’t a cake she could fix, wasn’t a recipe she could change. He had danger after him, but he was a knight, a mercenary, and could take care of himself.
Even if he was troubled, what could she do for him? She had broken her promise to her mother and her sister had died. She wasn’t good at helping anyone.
‘I found work,’ she said. ‘I’m to help them tonight and begin early tomorrow morning.’ Rhain sat unblinking as he listened to her paltry words. She gave a light shrug, unsure what to do with her hands or feet. Unsure what to do with herself. ‘I will leave you now.’
He nodded once, his head at an angle, and his hood almost hid his eyes. When she turned, she saw it.
On the other side of him rested the little bit of needlework and the necklace. They were not religious and he didn’t need those for prayer.
He noticed her stare and looked to his side and winced enough to push back his hood. When he faced her he looked…wary.
She didn’t know why she’d come here, but she felt a little closer to the truth then. As she recognized what might be the reason Rhain was praying in a garden and it had something to do with his mother.
‘Or, perhaps, I could stay?’ She pointed to the space next to him.
He grabbed the needlework and necklace and slid over so she sat where he had. She watched him rub his thumb along the necklace and needlework, his fingers flitting in that smooth instinctual way when he stroked the hilt of his dagger.
She wondered again if he knew he did that. If he knew it vibrated something inside her even as it soothed him. But she kept silent on that, as well as everything else as she sat next to him. Her need to help him seemed insurmountable now. It was the almost-quiet of the garden in this spot where he sat, the fact he made it sacred with his prayer.
It was him carrying that necklace and needlework all this time and how he handled them both like rosary beads. She knew they belonged to his mother, who was dead. She knew they held sentimental value and significance when he’d showed them to the vendors in Tickhill.
Yet she was unprepared for the overwhelming awareness that those items held for him. Because as she sat in the silence with him and felt him consider words he hadn’t said, she felt the weight of something descend upon her.
His mother had died; so had hers. But there was something else she experienced with that death. Something that with certain terrifying clarity she knew he felt, too: Guilt. Shame.
Rhain’s mother had died and something about her death brought him regret. It was so clear for one startling moment she wondered what flaw she held that prevented her from recognizing it before now. Was she so broken from her own hurt that she couldn’t sense it in others? In him?
Shame had shaped her scars, cowardice haunted her days and nightmares at night. Her family’s death was folded in every fiber of her being. She deserved it, earned it with her failure. All this time, she felt unworthy of being near Rhain, knowing she carried such scorched blackness within her. She justified it only because she knew their acquaintance would be brief.
And yet…and yet. The emotions rolling off him were unmistakable.
Nicholas had said Rhain needed his privacy when he was ‘like this’. Did Nicholas know the source of Rhain’s regret?
She came here to thank him for his kindness for bringing her to York. But she couldn’t help him with this; she’d never been able to help herself.
Rhain shifted his feet and she watched the fineness of his boots become dustier. Still, they were new, thick, with a quality she could only guess at.
She had to be mistaken about Rhain’s feelings. Rhain was noble born and he had charm and looks. His friends were loyal to him. How could he have regrets?
* * *
Rhain returned his concentration to the ground while Helissent, her eyes lowered, grew frustratingly silent.
Even so, something within him finally eased. For over an hour he’d been in the garden, surrounded by the smell of the lavender and sage and dirt.
Some quiet, a moment of prayer was usually all he needed to find the resolve that had carried him for the past five years. He didn’t even know if he prayed to God any more. As the years went on, as the trail to find his father became less likely, his prayers became more abstract. Finding his resolve afterward that much more difficult.
Yet, always he found it. All he needed to do was remind himself there was the next town, the next market stall.
However, today, it was all final. There were no other towns for him, no other moments because if it was true what Nicholas reported, he should be dead within the week.
Devastation crushed him when he realized he would never know the truth of his mother and his father. She’d died horribly for something he couldn’t fully comprehend. Fervent in her wishes for a pure Welsh ruler of Gwalchdu, her illness overwhelming her, she threatened the lives of his brother and wife.
In the end, she’d been mad, but once she’d been happy and danced. Once she had been loved and he was the result. He thought he could find answers. To know who and what she was, so he could fully understand what ran through his veins, but he’d run out of time.
Only a couple more days in York to locate Reynold or his spies, then he and his men would go. He’d either make it north to Edward’s camp or not. Either way, he had to find the means and strength to hide his pain regarding his mother. Weighted with thoughts like this, his men could ask questions. He didn’t want questions any more.
Just some way to calm his chaotic thoughts. That’s all he meant to do now, but he hadn’t quite succeeded when Helissent approached.
He’d sensed when she entered the garden and could have hid what he did, but he didn’t. It was almost like he wanted her to see his loss, wanted to share it with her. That was something he didn’t do even with his family, with his brother, now cousin.
Except he didn’t know how to share within Helissent’s tumultuous silence; he didn’t know how to begin. He lifted the needlework depicting the lost pendant and wrapped the necklace in it. As he placed it in the pouch he wondered whether he’d ever take them out again.
Then he saw what he had forgotten. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.
* * *
Helissent watched Rhain extract from his pouch a small, tightly wrapped, cylinder-shaped object.
‘What is this?’
‘Open it,’ he said, placing it in her hands.
Almost shaking, Helissent laid the package in her lap and untied it. Inside was a tiny cylinder sparkling in the afternoon light. It was rough and she could see it was made of tiny granules. Some had clung to the fabric wrapping.
‘You gave me salt?’ she asked. Although the cylinder was darker in color than salt, it had the same look about it.
It was a strange gift, but welcomed. She had no money for such things and she loved cooking.
He gave a small smile, his eyes alight. In this light, she saw little flecks in the amber around the darkness of his pupil. Like when honey was unfiltered, which for her gave it the richer flavor.
‘No,’ he whispered. His voice was warm and coaxing like honey.
She lifted the cylinder to her nose. It didn’t smell like salt.
‘You’re torturing me,’ he said.
‘You say that a lot.’
‘I’m a mercenary. Torture is our only fear.’
She couldn’t imagine him fearing anything.
‘And you’re quite adept at it,’ he continued. ‘Especially with making me wait. Taste it, Hellisent.’
‘It’s food?’
At his nod, she licked her finger and scraped it across the loose grains on the linen. Acutely aware of his eyes on her, she turned her head aside and placed the grains on her tongue.
She heard his rough exhale, but she didn’t look as something incredibly sweet filled her mouth.
Immediately she swiped her finger against the fabric again. This time she turned to him. ‘It’s not honey,’ she said around the finger in her mouth.
His expression was one of almost triumph. ‘It’s not honey. It’s called sweet-salt.’
She wanted to devour the entire tiny cylinder at the same time bury it like some lost treasure.
‘I’ve never heard of it before; I’ve never seen it. Where did you get it?’ How could she get more?
‘It’s rare. The Church is powerful and they can afford such wares. Hence the markets here tend to have goods such as these if you know what to look for or who to ask.’
So it was rare and expensive. ‘I’m not making you a cake with this.’
He laughed low. ‘That’s all for you. It keeps, as long as you don’t get it wet.’
She carefully wrapped the sweet-salt. ‘Why?’
‘I wanted it for you.’
He looked at her eyes, then back to her lips. She felt as if maybe she had sweet-salt lingering there before he looked away.
When she licked her lips, he pursed his.
She looked at the tiny cone and felt her eyes brim. This was a treasure, but that wasn’t what brought the tears to her eyes. It was that this was something very personal. Significant.
There was more going on here than she knew. He’d paid for her room and gave her a gift. They’d raced from Tickhill to York like they were pursued. Now, he provided a hidden escort for her.
‘He’s here, isn’t he? That man who is after you?’
He glanced at her. ‘I should never have told you of him.’
He hadn’t. Not really. She didn’t even know his name. ‘It’s not that I gave you a choice. You were trying to warn me off travelling with you.’
‘Do you think that’s the only reason I told you? To frighten you?’ He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe that’s what she thought. ‘You were almost irreparably harmed, Helissent, and still you were strong and stubborn enough to make cakes, and brave enough to demand from mercenaries a passage to York. I don’t think my vaguely mentioning a man after me would have frightened you to stay away, to stay safe. Although I hoped.’
This felt monumental. ‘Then why did you tell me?’
‘Because when it comes to you, I can’t seem to stop myself from sharing. Though it isn’t safe, it isn’t wise and nothing can come from it.’
That’s how she felt with him. Despite all else, all logic, they…shared. ‘Tell me then.’
‘There’s a chance if I tell you nothing you won’t be harmed.’
‘He knows about me,’ she pointed out.
‘The message conveyed he’d give you safe passage to York, which could mean he merely spotted you. Nothing more.’
Even so they’d rode hard here and he’d procured her a place to stay. A safe place. She could see that now. Small room, no windows, plenty of people about for security.
But Rhain was troubled regarding this man. What hope did she have for remaining safe regardless of the precautions he took?
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘You must appreciate that this man is no one to trifle with. Many have tried to kill him. I’ve heard he’s been stabbed and sliced and burned. He’s been betrayed by others and his own family, but he survives…and becomes more powerful. When I say I am a dead man, I mean it.’
‘Who is he?’
He gave a humorless laugh. ‘You see how little choice you give with your demands? The man who is after me is Reynold of Warstone, and the man I killed was his brother, Guy.’
She didn’t know the family, but from the way Rhain said it, he expected her to know.
‘Why did you kill him? Was he…did someone pay you?’
He adjusted in his seat, his only indication he was uneasy with the conversation. ‘Reynold is not fictional. He could be here now. Any one of these people in this garden could be his spy watching us converse.’
He was trying to distract her. ‘Did someone pay you to kill him?’
He looked around, sighed. ‘No, it was a reckless, heated moment.’
Rhain’s answer surprised her. She never saw him do anything that wasn’t methodical or carefully planned. He mocked things, which made people laugh, but he wasn’t reckless. Everything he did was towards providing for and protecting his friends. She’d never seen him behave recklessly except the night with her, when Rudd…
‘You were protecting someone, weren’t you?’
He rested his elbows on his legs again. ‘No protection at all. She died.’
Pain sliced down her middle. There was a ‘she’ who’d died. Rhain tried to protect a woman, someone he cared for very much if his reflective expression was anything to go by.
She had no right to her own sudden discomfort, but in these days with him, there had been no reference to a woman before. But of course there had to be a woman in his past. Rhain was wealthy, unmarried, and women coveted him.
Maybe he didn’t like them looking because he mourned and longed for this woman he failed to protect.
If that were true, she knew how that felt; she had failed to save her sister. ‘Tell me about her,’ she said.
His brow furrowed. ‘Not much to tell. A man killed her and the babies stood no chance.’
She gripped his wrist. She couldn’t stand it. ‘Rhain, tell me what happened.’ No pain for her any more. All for him. All the pain for him.
This was why he’d banished himself; why he was so alone. Children…dead. If she could, she would have killed this man, too. She wanted to kill Reynold simply for threatening Rhain.
‘My God, you’re crying,’ Rhain said.
‘You told me that babies died, how could I not?’
He cupped her chin and rubbed his thumb along her cheek to catch her tears. His expression was full of wonder. ‘All of these for me? I don’t deserve them, Helissent.’
She cried harder then. So much pain for him. So simple to shed tears. ‘I can’t seem to help it.’ She wanted to gather him to her, to…hold him. ‘What was her name?’ she asked instead.
‘I don’t think she had a name, not one that I ever heard.’ He dropped his hand. ‘Oh, you should see your expression. Anger now, pity before. Do you recognize it’s another gift you give me with your emotions? I’m in the mercenary business; no one tells the truth let alone displays it on their faces. But why are you—?’
‘Rhain, how could you not know her name? This woman who died, who had your children!’
He chuckled, but there was an encompassing warmth in his eyes. ‘I didn’t know her name because she was a dog.’
‘A dog?’ She knew she displayed every emotion she felt. She didn’t care if she looked the fool. She felt his pain from before, felt it now.
Rhain nodded. ‘Simply a dog. No one claimed her as their own, but she and a pack of others were always begging for food. I must have fed her the choicest pieces because she followed me around the most.’
‘So the babies were puppies?’
He nodded and turned away from her. His elbows on his knees again, his hands clasped as if in prayer.
Not a wife or a child, but he still hurt. She felt it. ‘Oh, Rhain, I’m so sorry.’
‘Because I was a fool? I was kind to her; it was why she was beside me when she gave birth and that’s when Guy found me. He wanted to do business right then and I told him no. I knew what kind of man he was, that he didn’t desire fortress protection or to correct border disputes. He wanted murderers. I knew the caliber of man he was and had no intention to agree to his terms.
‘But the dog had just given birth and my true thoughts were on her. Instead of courtesy or formality, I gave Guy of Warstone a blunt no and didn’t raise my eyes to him.’
She’d dealt with cruel unreasonable customers before. She could somewhat appreciate the kind of man he’d refused.
Rhain shook his head like he was the unreasonable one. ‘I’ve been a mercenary for five years, a knight before that. I’ve been doing this a long time because I’m one of the best.
‘I know how to negotiate, to interact with men like him,’ he continued. ‘Never take your eyes from them. Always stand on higher terrain. Never kneel. Never show interest in anything that could be used against you.
‘When Guy stepped into my tent, I was kneeling by that dog’s side, helping her with the birth. The babies had just started suckling…’
He pulled in a breath and pressed his hands against his knees. It looked as if he was bracing himself for what he was telling her. She wished she could brace herself, too.
‘He stomped on her belly, then ground his heel on her head before I could stand. Before I could take my sword and gut him.’
Helissent shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.
‘Nicholas immediately killed Guy’s two guards while I gathered the puppies and we fled. We had spare horses then, but they were getting shod and we had to leave them. My men fled with me. Except Nicholas, no one knew what happened. I compensated the men. Some were…indisposed. We were to be there another week of rest that they deserved. I put them on the road again.’
Pain in the telling. Incredulousness as if all his reasoning fled him. She had felt like that before. When she entered her home to save her sister. Nothing is rational in the heat of the moment. It doesn’t make it less real.
‘So for this dog’s death, and Guy’s,’ she said, ‘you have the Warstone family, Reynold, after you?’
‘Reckless. Ancestors would laugh if they knew.’
How to make him understand? ‘She wasn’t only a dog,’ Helissent said. ‘She was your friend and she knew you were hers because she trusted you when she was most vulnerable.’
He put his face in his hands. ‘I couldn’t save her. The puppies…they’re all dead. Fleeing, we couldn’t find another nursing female. I tried to feed them other kinds of milk, but they wouldn’t take. I thought one would, but then…’
He lifted his head, his hand clenching. ‘You’re crying again? You’ve a soft heart.’
She wiped her tears. A soft heart, but only when it came to him. ‘I haven’t cried like this since the innkeepers came for me.’
‘Too many gifts you give me.’ His eyes searched hers, dropped lower and lingered on her lips. ‘Too many gifts I still want.’
She watched how his expression changed, how his brows drew in. How a muscle ticked in his jaw when he tilted his head and faced her more fully.
‘Like what?’ she whispered.
He cupped her jaw, his thumb caressing just under her lower lip. ‘I want to know, though I don’t deserve it…’
His hand was warm against her cheek. His thumb was roughened by callouses. But his touch was soft against her lower lip.
His eyes lingered; his thumb pressed. Her lips felt swollen from the need for kisses he hadn’t yet given. Dry from air she couldn’t seem to breathe. She parted her lips, inhaled the smell of the garden, of him. Took another quick breath, greedy for more.
Taking in all of her responses, his eyes flared before his lids grew heavy. ‘Though I can’t do anything about it as a knight, as a man should…’
She was aware of the silence in the garden, of the zephyr through the fruit trees. She was aware of the slight sound she made as she wetted her lips and the almost helpless tone he used as he said, ‘You are, aren’t you?’
‘I am?’ she said, feeling the soft air across her tongue.
‘As sweet as your cakes.’ He dipped his head, lifted her chin with the barest of pressure.
The heat inside her flared like the fires in an oven that she’d just fed, then he brought her lips to his. Warm. Firm. A hint of ale, of sage. Of him.
* * *
Better than cakes, better than melting honey, and all too brief. Rhain lifted his head.
Her taste was more than he’d dreamed of. He wanted only to give her a kiss, to sip from her lips. She was so soft, so tenderly giving as she sat next to him and shed her tears.
Except the kiss didn’t feel simple when Helissent’s eyes darkened and wonder lit her face.
Not simple at all, when he pulled away, rubbed his thumb against her lips and she let out the slightest bit of sound…of need.
That was his undoing in this. Already unraveled with the telling of London, of the danger to him. Now desire was filling him. Her hands clenched in her lap, her body turning towards his. Wanting more.
Rhain, branded by her taste, wanted more. His thumb pressed harder and her lips parted. A sound. His? He tunneled his fingers through her hair, and lifted her chin.
To press his lips, to catch her hitched breath. To deepen his kiss. Soft, wet, heat. To claim—
A sound of horses clattering outside the garden walls.
He pulled away. Exhaling roughly from the temptation she made, from the questions entering her eyes, Rhain looked away, scanned the empty garden. Two kisses too many. Two kisses even more dangerous than telling her about Guy and Reynold.
With a breath, a stab to his own heart, he stood and offered her his hand. ‘We should leave; get some sleep.’
‘Why did you do that?’ She took his hand.
‘Sleeping at night? It’s a habit I’ve picked up.’
Helissent wasn’t letting go of his hand, and he knew he was in trouble. More because he wasn’t letting go either.
There was a warmth in her eyes like she was amused at his attempt at humor, but there was heat there as well.
‘You kissed me,’ she said.
Her eyes searched his no doubt for answers he didn’t have. He didn’t know why she was different. In the past, he had found and gave pleasure, but it had always been light-hearted.
Since learning the truth of his birth, whenever he was tempted by women, it had been easy to walk away. All he had to do was remember that frozen moment of reading his mother’s books, of knowing the truth, to remember he could never spill his seed with a woman. That any future, of a family with children, was denied him since he was born.
But he couldn’t seem to remember that with Helissent. They had shared themselves with each other. His need for her went beyond lust and temptation. Though he felt them both keenly now.
‘I can’t seem to stop,’ he answered.
‘Do it again.’
A twist of need he just held back. ‘Helissent, you don’t know what you’re asking.’
‘I do. I just never thought myself brave enough to ask.’
He cupped her chin in his hand, felt the slight tremble and tightening of her fingers entwining with his in the other. He saw no hesitation in her eyes, no worries. Only want.
He wanted to be the man to feed that want, but he couldn’t. Two kisses too many.
‘You’re a maiden. You deserve a man who will stay to marry you, to have children of your own. I’m not that man.’
He saw the want in her eyes dim, the bravery fade. Even before she stepped away and released her hand he felt the loss.
* * *
Rhain’s words cut jaggedly through Helissent’s heart. So suddenly, she startled with the sting of tears she just blinked back. Rejected. Unwanted.
What made her ask for a kiss? She should have known this would be the response. She deserved this response. Still, she asked, ‘Is it because of my scars?’
Rhain closed his eyes and cursed. When he opened them, the amber of his eyes was darker than she’d ever seen them before.
‘You’re torturing me,’ he whispered. ‘I’m wanting to do what is right by you.’
Despite his words or his actions, and her own beliefs of acceptance, it was because of her scars. What else could it be?
She yanked up her skirts and ran.